Batting style Right-hand bat Name Bruce Murray 1958-59 to 1972-73 Wellington | National side New Zealand Bowling style Legbreak Role Cricketer | |
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Bruce Alexander Grenfell Murray (born 18 September 1940, in Johnsonville) played 13 Tests for New Zealand as a right-handed opening batsman.
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Domestic career
Murray played his first first-class match at the age of 18 for Wellington against Central Districts at Wellington in 1958-59, scoring 49 in the first innings. After several seasons in the Plunket Shield, he was selected for New Zealand's non-Test tour of Australia in 1967-68, where he scored 351 runs at an average of 43.87.
His highest first-class innings came in 1968-69 when he scored 213 out of a total of 392 for 5 declared for Wellington against Otago in Dunedin.
International career
He made his Test debut in early 1968 against India in Dunedin, scoring 17 and 54. In the first innings of the Second Test in Christchurch he scored 74, putting on 126 for the first wicket with Graham Dowling to set New Zealand on the path to its first Test victory over India; he also took four catches in the match.
He toured England in 1969 and India and Pakistan in 1969-70. His highest Test score, 90, and another four catches, helped New Zealand to its first Test victory over Pakistan in a low-scoring match in Lahore in 1969-70; the day after the Test he scored 157 in three and a half hours for the New Zealanders against the BCCP President's XI in Rawalpindi.
He is one of just three players to have taken a Test wicket without conceding a run, giving him a career bowling average of 0.00. In the Third Test in Wellington in 1968 he bowled 6 balls and dismissed the Indian opener Syed Abid Ali.
Along with his contemporaries in the New Zealand team Bryan Yuile and Vic Pollard he would not play cricket on Sundays for religious reasons. The later careers of the three were therefore curtailed by the widespread introduction of Sunday play in the early 1970s. In 1967 he wrote a pamphlet, The Christian and Sport.
After cricket
After his retirement from cricket, Murray continued his teaching career, teaching at Tawa College near Wellington, then at Naenae College in Lower Hutt, where he became principal in 1981, before becoming principal at Tawa College from 1989 to 2002. He has written a number of books, especially since his retirement, including several about the Tawa district.
His granddaughter Amelia Kerr has played international cricket for New Zealand, and appeared at the 2017 Women's Cricket World Cup.